Balmy, bait, and booty. Striped bass have a preferred temperature range. Some say its 55-65. Others use that 50 degree benchmark as go time. But if you are a bass and can find waters say 4-8 degrees warmer on the flats, or in a channel, or up a river, then when you're ready to thaw out from the winter they'll take the ride. And then there's the bait. As they wake up they love to root around lazily for things like worms, crabs, and shrimp. They may even position themselves in a current to pick off mummichogs
or spearing. There's big baits as well, bunker, shad, and herring. While anglers are catching them on casts, I wonder if it's more of a reaction strike then being on an all out eat. And for the drop and reel shad and spoon anglers fishing longs and lats and the electronics dropping them in front of their faces can get a bite. And then there's booty, or pre-spawn, spawn, or post spawn fish. These early fish are making their way into places before they either follow the bait or the pheromones from the opposite sex. The Hudson River anglers are salivating at the mouth watching all of the reports of the Raritan Bay action now, as theses fish will soon head north.
It's right on the cusp of getting good. Yes the boats have been sitting over them but I'm talking for the anglers on foot. You know the places, Keyport, Rumson, Carteret, Moonachie, and Bound Brook. Great now go catch a fish. Funny thing is, you hear like, "Keyport's on fire". The other day when I was talking with Mark Sedotti, who's from another state, he mentioned Keyport. So take you're 10 weight and your Beast Fleyes and go down when there when you can. As soon as you pull up you'll be able to witness the bass blowing bunker out of the water, and if you wade you can hand catch. Well, that's not the way it goes.
These spots, for the most part, require being dialed in. You may even be a sharpie and be dialed into a few different spots. Now if you're on a 6 hour soak through a tide or split tide, it doesn't matter, you're good, but for the fly angler, or the spin angler also, you really need to work, hard, at the right time, tide and conditions to be doing it. If you took that drive today to say the Keyport area you'd find cold air, brisk wind, flat water, a few guys freezing their arses off, maybe a dead bunker, and no signs of life except for the boats out a mile and birds picking and fighting over a half dead bunker. You, would then be doing it. You'd catch no fish and it might be a one and done trip. But if you come back on the smae tide at night, each day, for say a week, and then get lucky and catch, then you'd be dialed in, kinda.
Tomorrow, with a NW wind and dropping air temps I'll be "dropping" in to a spot I'm dialed into hoping that I get lucky, because I've never stepped into the water there.